These trusting Stark County gardeners still sell via honor-system

WASHINGTON TWP. The roadside stand in front of Rachel Ries’ house on Hartzell Avenue NE burst with summer colors.

Orange tomatoes. Fuchsia-ribbed Swiss chard. Yellow squash and dark green zucchini. Garnet and gold flowers. Peppers in shades of red, green and pale yellow. All of it was for sale on the honor system.

“I have a big garden right now,” Ries said. “Most of it is extra that we can’t can or freeze, so I put it out there.”

Roadside stands like Reis’ dot country lanes throughout Stark and surrounding counties in late summer. Most are no more than a pile of produce, a price list and a money jar.

It might seem quaint or foolish to do business on the honor system, but stand owners say it works and consumers might get a brain boost from the transaction along with their fresh produce.

“I always wanted to feed the people who can’t garden anymore,” she said. “I get so excited when people stop.”

The Ries family moved a couple of years ago to the Freeburg area from Portage County, where Rachel worked on an organic farm. She and her mother, Karen, grow vegetables in their own garden to feed their family throughout the year, and generally promote an organic lifestyle.

“We’d rather eat from ourselves than from the store,” Karen Ries said. “It’s more nutritional that way, right off the vine.”

In the garden next to their house they cultivate lettuce, onions, sunflowers, Brussels sprouts, kale, Swiss chard, beets, broccoli, zinnias, marigolds and cosmoses. The family also sells eggs from their hens.

"Whatever people can give me, I’m fine with it, but I do have stuff priced,” Rachel Ries said. “They just put money in the jar, get a bag full of stuff and go.”

Why does it work?

Shoppers in traditional stores routinely encounter surveillance cameras and other security measures, but there’s room in retail for businesses that merely trust customers to pay.

University of Louisville professor Michael Cunningham researches honesty and integrity, including how they work in the business world.

“Most people can be trusted most of the time, which is a good thing,” he said.

Businesses that successfully use the honor system with customers tend to be small and very community-focused, such as roadside stands, coffee shops and restaurants, Cunningham said.

The owner of a small enterprise generally has a small investment in its inventory. For example, a roadside stand can afford to lose a few ears of corn. A store that sells smartphones that cost hundreds of dollars apiece can’t afford to lose any.

A personal connection between buyer and seller also is important. People in smaller communities and groups tend to be more honest because there’s a greater sense of accountability and scrutiny, and a greater sense of concern for the well-being of others.

When you stop at a roadside stand, you’re on the owner’s property, buying something he or she grew.

“Even if you haven’t met the owner, you have a relationship with the owner,” Cunningham said. “It is not a faceless, predatory corporation. … I don’t think Walmart could say, ‘Pay whatever the price tag says it is,’ and get all the money they expect at the end of the day.”

Consumers also have to think you’re asking a fair price, and if they do, they might even pay a little more than the listed price.

Cunningham said consumers like to be trusted, which triggers a burst of oxytocin, a feel-good brain hormone linked to social bonding.

“Conversely, people don’t like it when they’re treated as potential thieves,” he said.

For the bees

The honor system can even work for items more expensive than a 25-cent tomato or $2 cup of coffee.

Richard Bittner, a beekeeper based in the Cleveland area, sells raw honey at four honor-system tables around the region. Some of his jars sell for as much as $20.

You can typically find the amber goo at a table on Beech Street NE just west of Beechwood Avenue, and Bittner said he planned to open another table in the Alliance area soon.

Bittner sells honey in a few stores, but he prefers honor-system tables because he can sell honey directly at $8 a pound, versus $10 to $12 a pound in a shop.

“People are pretty honest,” Bittner said. “Since I’ve been doing this for 20 years, I’ve probably had three incidences where either the mailbox was pried off or broken into. That’s very rare. People who want to buy honey, pay for it. People who don’t know anything about it, they’re not going to touch it.”

Mel and Connie Pucci have hosted Bittner’s honey stand at their Beech Street home for about 15 years.

The stand used to have a black mailbox labeled “Honey Money,” but someone grabbed it a few years ago and scattered the money down the road. A heavy steel moneybox, secured with a padlock and bolted to the picnic table, replaced it.

But most customers are painstakingly honest. Some might not have exact change, so they take a jar and pay later, making sure to knock at the Pucci’s door so they know the debt has been paid.

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